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 Get Behind America!
Losing isn't everything, what America needs (and deserves) in the Ryder Cup is your support By David Feherty
Contributing Writer, GOLFONLINE Whether it was sport
or something really
important (like war),
it's been a tough year to
be an American playing abroad. The
U.S. hockey team fell into a burning
rink of fire at the Olympics, and the
basketball team lost to Greece at the
World Championships. Yes, the same
Greece where just last year they discovered
the object was to put the ball
through the hoop, not throw it at
the other team like dodgeball.
Banana republicans won the
World Baseball Classic, and the
U.S. soccer team left the World
Cup early with a massive wedgie.
The only real success story was the
tender sprouts from Columbus,
Ga., who won the Little League
World Series. What do you
suppose their coach told them
before the big game? I'll give
you two choices:
Victor Juhasz
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A. "If you lose, you'll be
letting the entire country down
and you won't be allowed to
play on this team ever again."
B. "Winning isn't everything,
and as long as you give 100 percent,
play by the rules and carry yourselves
with dignity, you'll be a winner."
My money is on the latter. The
problem is that by the time we don't
need a hug from our mommies
anymore, we're being judged by
different standards. Players who
make it to the World Series or the
Super Bowl are heroes for a week, but
if they don't win they get branded on
the ass like steers from the Big L
Ranch. Somewhere between pubic
hair and a legal margarita (which for
me, arrived in the wrong order), our
kids figure out that if they give 100
percent, play by the rules and carry
themselves with dignity, they'll end
up getting their asses kicked while
the "winner" whines about how he's
underappreciated.
The case of the U.S. Ryder Cup
team is interesting. They've lost five
of the last six Cups, against ever-increasing
background noise that
now includes moral indignation over
the amount of money they play for!
Excuse me? You think golfers are paid
too much? Last time I checked, it was
close to impossible to get one of only
50 PGA Tour cards that entitle a player
to take his own money and attempt
to turn it into more by beating the
same 125 guys who are waaay better
than thousands of other guys who
made it close to impossible for him to
get the damn card. And if he's really
good then he might get the chance to
be paid absolutely nothing to play in
an event in which there's a better-than-average chance he is going to get
his ass handed to him by a guy who
most American golf fans wouldn't
know from the tight end on the
French chess team. And because of
all this good fortune he'll be called a
LOSER! Holy crap, does that sound
like a good deal, or what?
The wee man on the lid of
the Ryder Cup, Abe Mitchell,
was Sam Ryder's golf coach.
Mitchell competed in the
Ryder Cup for the British
side in 1929, '31 and '33, and
he's bent over like he's about
to hold his ankles for a reason.
It took almost six
decades for the British and
Irish to get their hands on the
cup with any regularity, and
then it only happened because
of the reluctant inclusion of a
bunch of fuzzy foreigners.
The reason the U.S. has
lost so many recent Cups is
not because they don't care or
their lives are too cushy, it's
because the Europeans are a whole
lot better than Americans think they
are, and they have a fan-based support
system that has instilled a sense
of self-worth even when they have
lost. Ironically, they have been helped
enormously by American fans who
enjoy seeing Europe win because they
feel its players are less-coddled regular
guys. That may be true, but when
will Americans start wondering why
these European guys don't win more
majors, instead of why Americans
don't win the Ryder Cup?
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